Neufchâtel-en-Bray

Someone wrote in the reviews this was the best aire they had stopped in. It shows we all want different things. Actually it grew on me. Each spot (14 in total) had hedges around it and a piece of grass as well as the hard standing bit, so each spot had lots of room. It also had toilets, showers and laundry at a cost, so compared to a lot of aires it was actually quite nice. The sparrows loved the hedges that surrounded us, and it did distract me during my Russian lesson watching them hopping in and out. Getting here was a bit of a nightmare as the road was closed about 50 metres before the site, if we had known we could have driven past the road closed sign, instead we navigated the local roads avoiding all those roads that had 3.5T restrictions. We walked into town to find some new earbuds, my old ones still being in Earith, I’ve been thinking of buying new ones for a year so it forced the point. The next day we set off on the cycle route to Dieppe. France is very good at cycle routes, this one was an old railway track, on a route that links Paris to London. I can guarantee the path will not be as good once it hits British soil. This part went through lots of fine countryside, into the industrial region of Dieppe and then on to the very centre. Dieppe was just how I remembered it from about 20 years ago. We had lunch and sat on the beach with a flask of coffee. Unfortunately we had a Russian lesson to get back for so we peddled like crazy back to the van. 35K each way, great welcome back to cycling that has been suffering recently. I could have spent an extra night here trying the cycle path in the other direction, but we wanted to be on a new site for over the easter weekend, getting there on Thursday before the weekenders just to make sure we have a pitch, so on we moved.